The way Suarez is pitching, it's almost unfair to give him additional run support, but that didn’t stop the Phillies from doing so anyway in the fifth. With two outs, Whit Merrifield reached base on an infield single. A walk and another infield single by Trea Turner (part of a three-hit night for him) loaded the bases, and Bryce Harper got a run home by working a walk. The Phillies had a chance to break the game open, and they had exactly the right man at the plate.
Sadly, Eguy Rosario’s home run in the eighth put an end to the shutout and halted Suarez’s scoreless inning streak at 32.2. Undaunted, Suarez retired the next batter to end the inning, and Jeff Hoffman struck out the side in the ninth to make it official.
The Phillies will go for the sweep on Sunday afternoon. Taijuan Walker will be making his first start of the season, and it would be tough to expect him to match Suarez’s level of dominance. The Phillies will probably need to give him a bit of run support, but considering how well Bohm is swinging the bat right now, that seems like a strong possibility.
Neither Ranger Suarez nor Alec Bohm have been bad the past two seasons. They’ve had stretches of success with a share of big moments mixed in, but neither man was able to break through to the level of stardom which it felt like they were capable of. About a month into the 2024 season, that seems to be changing. They’ve both been as hot as any player in baseball over the past couple of weeks, and on Saturday night, they combined to lead the Phillies to a 5-1 win over the San Diego Padres.
After hitting five home runs against the Padres on Friday night, the Phillies figured to have a tougher time of it on Saturday, facing ace righthander Dylan Cease. But even Cease was no match for the hot streak that Bohm is on. With one man on and two outs in the first inning, Bohm staked his team to an early lead.
That was plenty of run support for Suarez who is simply over the whole giving up runs thing. He entered Saturday on a 25-inning scoreless streak, and that continued for the first 7.2 innings of this game. He breezed through the Padres lineup, giving up just two hits (one was an infield single) through the first seven innings, and one of those hits was quickly erased via pickoff. He struck out eight batters, and induced eleven ground outs, a couple of which he fielded himself with his usual Gold Glove caliber defense.
Alec Bohm and Ranger Suarez are having the seasons we wanted from them. Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports
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